After Noah entered the ark, did you know he did not hear from God for 197 days? The Bible said Noah and his family entered the ark in Genesis 7:1. After God closed the door, the rains came. Noah did not recognize the world he once knew. The geography was changing daily, landmarks disappeared. Cities gone, roads gone, homes gone. Nothing looked the same. Noah used to see many people walking in the streets where he also walked and he used to see many people shopping in the marketplaces where he also shopped. Above all, there was complete silence from God. The only thing he heard was the sound of heavy water drops beating on the ark, day after day, after day. It is not hard for us to understand how Noah must have felt. Is it possible that sometime in the middle of the 197 days he looked up at the sky, he didn’t know how all this was going to end and what was going to happen to him, and he said to God, “Where are you?”
Maybe you have been feeling a little down lately. In your loneliness and in your crying out to God for help, you find yourself asking the same question, “Where are you, God?” You may be feeling God has forgotten about you. You may be feeling God does not notice what you are going through. But I assure you that is inconsistent with what the Bible says. God has not left. God cares. God is always at work in your life. God remembers you.
But someone will say to me, “But Alvin, how can I be sure God remembers me?” I know that God remembers you because that is what he does. He has done this many times in the Bible. He has done it in Genesis 8. And he has done it many more times outside of Genesis 8. Noah he remembered. But besides Noah, God remembered many more. God remembered someone or something in the Old Testament a total of 73 times. That is who God is. That is what he does. He remembers.
When God destroyed the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God remembered.
Genesis 19:29
Thus it came about, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.
When Rachel could not get pregnant and prayed for a child, God remembered her.
Genesis 30:22
Then God remembered Rachel, and God gave heed to her and opened her womb.
When the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt, God remembered.
Exodus 2:24
So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The next time your Bible reading time takes you to Genesis, read it slowly, especially read Genesis 8:1 slowly. Don’t miss it. Please do not say that God forgets things and forgets us, so he needs to be reminded. Please do not say either that God forgets the covenantal promises he makes with his people, so he needs to be reminded. God doesn’t forget things and people. God doesn’t forget his promises either. From our perspective, when our eyes meet the words, “God remembers” in the Bible, our minds automatically start thinking we have a God who just now remembered something or someone he had forgotten. After all, isn’t that what it means to “remember”? But from God’s perspective, he is saying, “It is time”. It wasn’t time on Day 195. It wasn’t time on Day 196. It was time on Day 197. The time has arrived for God to act. The time has come for him to extend his love and mercy to his children. God has not stopped working in his people. God remembers. It is time.
Isaiah 49:14
But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, And the Lord has forgotten me.”
“Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.”